It has been 23 days since the social worker assigned to helping me started trying to contact my birth mother. 23 very long seeming days of no contact from him. I have watched other adoptees I'm in Facebook groups post about the letters they've received. Joyous and ecstatic responses from their birth family so excited to hear from them. And while I am so happy for them, each post I see tears me down just a little more as another day without a response goes by.
I refresh my email countless times a day, bypassing emails that I probably should read as I search for the one from SWS. And each day I find myself falling deeper into a depressive state as I realize there is none.
I am trying to remind myself that if she did receive the letters than this is huge news for her. That while I have had the time to process wanting to meet her from the moment I started this process, she has not. That perhaps she is just too overwhelmed right now by it. I am trying to remind myself that patience is key in this search.
But it's hard.
It's hard when the same things keep echoing inside of my mind on a daily basis. It's hard when I keep replaying things that people have said to me in the past. About not being good enough. About not being wanted. That damn phrase from my childhood playing like a broken record, "No one will ever want you, even your real parents didn't."
I have cried more in the last month than I could have thought possible. I have had horrible depressive lows and a constant barrage of suicidal thoughts. I've pulled over on the side of the road because an anxiety attack made it so that I thought I would crash my car, and then wished that I would have. Each day is a bigger struggle the further I go into this journey and I feel as though I am trying to swim through quicksand.
There are days that I wish I hadn't started it. That I would have waited. There are also days that I wish I would have started this sooner, that maybe I waited too long. I don't write about the bad days to draw pity or attract attention, I write it to get it out there, to show that the journey isn't all rainbow and smiles. That as excited as I am for the trip to South Korea, I also struggle just to get through each day leading up to it.
It's been 23 days and I can't help but wonder how many more it'll be till I hear back.